Appeal for help after Leeds nightclub knife attack

A 25-YEAR-OLD Leeds man - slashed across the face with a knife in a city centre nightclub over the bank holiday weekend - reckons he’s lucky not to have been more seriously injured.

Mark Harsley needed seven stitches in a four-inch wound to his left cheek and will be scarred for life by the attack in Chilli White on Sunday night.

But he’s hoping others in the bar will help police track down his attacker before he pulls a knife again.

“If I’d just leant forward at the wrong moment, I could have been cut across the eye or - even worse - the neck,” said Mark, a media sales assistant from Morley. “Pulling a knife is a coward’s trick but whoever did this was pretty quick to use one - and someone else might not be as lucky next time.”

The attack happened within a few minutes of a minor altercation near the dance floor and while Mark’s friend was trying to diffuse tension between two groups of men.

“It was so quick,” said Mark. “I only saw the knife after he’d cut me and put a hand up to my face and felt the blood.”

Detective Inspector Andy Welbourn of Leeds District CID, said: “Anyone who is prepared to take a knife out with them on a night out and use it to attack someone in a busy nightclub is clearly a dangerous individual and someone that we need to trace and arrest at the earliest opportunity.”

Anyone in Chilli White between about 2am and 2.30am on Sunday who witnessed the incident or may know the suspect - described as being of mixed race, about 6ft and aged in his mid-twenties - is urged to contact DC Steve Wilkins at Elland Road via 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.